


No Longer A Virgin

by LondonLioness



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alcohol, Angst, Drug Use, Gen, No Sex, No Smut, Title does NOT refer to sex, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-27
Updated: 2019-01-28
Packaged: 2019-10-16 13:47:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17550848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LondonLioness/pseuds/LondonLioness
Summary: The first strand of Moriarty's web Sherlock took out -- a human trafficking ring in Germany -- was vast. As it turned out, though, Hamburg was just a distribution point. To find the source of the operation, he had to hack into their computer. Hence, his current situation, skulking along the sixth floor of a perfectly respectable office building downtown. Obtaining his objective wasn't going to be easy: there were cameras, sensors and silent alarms aplenty. He'd disabled some and tricked others, but he had no illusions how short his time was before someone caught on.He peeked around a corner and pulled back instantly. Two guards stood in front of an office.Two. With one, you could hope to disable him and throw him in a closet somewhere, but two gave him little choice.Someone was going to die.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> In case you didn't read the tags: The title of this work does not refer to sex. There is no smut here, or in any of my works for that matter. Just not my jam.
> 
> This takes place during Sherlock's mission to take down Moriarty's web. Mofftiss has always glossed over exactly what that detailed. I can't imagine it was pretty.
> 
> I edited the summary, since I didn't think the original was very good. If you've already read the story, nothing there was changed. But thank you. If you haven't read this before, please enjoy and let me know what you think.

The first strand of Moriarty's web Sherlock Holmes took out -- a human trafficking ring in Germany -- was vast. He had deduced that within 30 seconds, simply from the varied nationalities of the "merchandise." As it turned out, though, Hamburg was merely a distribution point. To find the source of the operation, he needed to hack into their computer. 

Hence, his current situation, skulking along the sixth floor of a perfectly respectable office building downtown. Incongruous though it seemed, he knew it really wasn't unusual for criminal organisations to use office space: the logistics involved in moving commodities were the same, whether those commodities were butter, guns, or human souls. 

Obtaining his objective wasn't going to be easy, though. Security at the main entrance had been a joke, but on this floor, there were cameras, sensors, and silent alarms aplenty. He had disabled some and tricked others, but he had no illusions about how limited his time was before somebody caught on. 

Holding his breath, he peeked around a corner and pulled back instantly. Two guards stood in front of an office. 

_Two._ That gave him a moment's pause. Why two? With one guard, you could entertain the notion of subduing him, tying him up and throwing him in a closet somewhere, but two left him little choice. 

Someone was going to die. 

He peeked again. The guards were hardly "on guard;" they were conversing and chuckling over something on one's cell phone. A brief conversation at the changing of the guard, then. He had only to wait a minute and one or the other would move off. 

But the minute stretched to two, then three. There seemed to be an endless gallery of photographs they were flipping through and each one needed to be chuckled over and commented on. 

Finally, Sherlock could wait no longer. He was out of time, and therefore out of choices. 

Another peek. They were still there, still distracted, and conveniently facing away from him. They were making it easy for him. 

It seemed wrong that this should be easy. 

He glided up behind them, clutching his weapon. This was a hand-held variation on the device used to "knock" cattle in slaughterhouses, designed to fire a steel bolt into the brain. Although it required close quarters to use it, it had the virtue of being almost completely noiseless. Not for the first time, Sherlock reflected on the absurdity of the Bond films John enjoyed so much. The best silencers in the world could diminish a gun's report by only about half, which was still very loud. These thoughts provided sufficient distraction that he could pretend he wasn't shaking as he pressed the weapon to the back of one guard's head and pulled the trigger. 

The usual response to seeing one's companion suddenly crumple would be to bend over him, but the second guard didn't do that. Instead, in a move that did credit to his training, he threw himself into a forward tumble and came up with his gun. 

Sherlock didn't hesitate. He lunged at the guard's ankles in a flying tackle. As intended, the guard went over him and landed face down. Sherlock expected him to scramble away, but he was surprised again. The man flipped himself over with almost preternatural speed, so the elbow Sherlock meant to hit him with between the shoulder blades struck squarely on his windpipe. There was a sickening wet crunch as the hyoid bone collapsed and the guard started gasping and thrashing like a fish out of water. Sherlock retrieved his bolt shooter to grant the other man the only mercy he could. The words, "I'm sorry" trembled on his lips, and he bit them back angrily. "Sorry" could mean nothing to someone who would cease to exist in the next instant. 

That done, he took the key card from the guard's pocket and turned back to the door. The whole thing must have taken mere seconds, because he could see the image displayed on the cell phone lying on the floor. An image of... 

He blinked, mentally took hold of the picture and flung it to the deepest corner of his mind palace. He couldn't process that right now; he had work to do. 

Seven minutes later, he had his answer. He was undoubtedly out of time, so he didn't bother going back out into the corridor. Instead, he used the ventilation shaft to shinny up two floors, then he crept up the staircase to the roof, and from there, away. 

He was blocks away before he convinced himself there was no pursuit. He used a fire escape to descend to street level, mingled with the crowds and sat down at a bus stop. The teenager next to him had a bag of crisps, and the crunching sound... 

He leapt up and strode away. A few blocks away was another bench, blessedly unoccupied He took out his burner phone, texted a report to Mycroft, and binned the phone. 

Back to the hotel, then. He shut the door leaned back against it, and slid to the floor. To his own surprise, as soon as he was alone, he started shaking violently. 

_Comedown from the adrenaline,_ he thought, although he knew that to be untrue. Standing up didn't seem like something that was going to happen anytime soon, so he leaned his head back and closed his eyes. 

Immediately, the picture from the guard's cell phone painted itself on his closed eyelids. 

_No!_ He heaved himself to his feet and stalked to the minibar. Alcohol had never been his first choice of intoxicant, but right now, those little bottles looked very good. 

One airplane bottle each of Skye Vodka, Drambuie, and Chivas Regal later, Sherlock remembered why alcohol was always his last choice. He got "drunk" right enough, but his mind didn't shut down. It just didn't get him to sweet oblivion. 

Well. He knew what did. 

He swept back out of the room, refusing to think about what he was doing. He wasn't thinking at all, in fact. When Mycroft's voice in his head remonstrated, _Mummy will be so cross,_ he didn't spare a thought to reply. 

Thinking was something human beings did. He was something else now. 

He was a killer. 

Thought was unnecessary, after all. His body knew the way. Away from the light, toward the scent of squalor and despair. There, in the alley, the kind of man who inhabits such alleys. Their eyes met and the man peeled himself away from the wall, smiling. Sherlock handed him the local equivalent of three hundred pounds and said, "I'll take whatever you've got." 

He went back to the hotel and spent the next several days doing exactly that. 

He saved the cocaine for last. Cocaine brought clarity, and that was the last thing he wanted right now. But heroin, morphine, benzos -- yes, yes, and yes. Cool, sweet, fragrant dark. He stayed high for two solid days, and when there was no tremor left anywhere in his nervous system, he called up the cell phone image. For a moment, he studied the picture of the guard sitting next to a rosy-cheeked young woman in a hospital bed, holding their newborn son. He condensed all his regret into a match, struck it, and touched the flame to the image, which blistered and burned. 

Deleted. 

The next morning, he pricked his arm with his beloved seven percent solution, and logic reasserted itself. It had been necessary. The deaths of those two guards had saved hundreds, perhaps thousands, of women and children from lives of brutal degradation. Two versus thousands. The math worked out fine. 

Besides, he probably wouldn't have to do that again. 5 or 6 more stops in as many months, maybe, and then _home._ London, John, pretty soon. 

If someone had told him then that his crusade would span three continents and two years and that he would feel living flesh quiver and go still under his fingers twenty-six more times, he would not have been able to bear it. 

\- Fin -


	2. Chapter 2

No chapter, just a note. I accidentally posted this as a draft, only two sentences in. By the time I finished it for real, the story had gotten buried. I figure adding a chapter will kick it back to the top of the queue. What does it say about my ego that I need more than a handful of people to read my story? I need help, right? 

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed it. Feel free to tell me what you thought.

**Author's Note:**

> I know I take my time replying, but I really do live for comments. Concrit always welcome, emphasis on the "con."


End file.
